


We Became Our Own Improvisation

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Shameless schmoop ahead please tread carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:57:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waking up to bars of sunlight and kisses and the song of a solitary violin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Became Our Own Improvisation

Routine. A well-rehearsed dance. 

Sherlock always wakes first, as he does this morning. He presses a singular kiss to John's left eyebrow, slides his feet out of bed. The arrival of his consciousness could be compared to the silent communication of birds, wings poised for the swift morning flight. First one tests the wind, up, up, slowly and indecisive - naturally - because he is the first. Then another, followed by a third, until finally a silent scream parses it's way through the flock and they all lift off in one breath, higher and higher, an arrowhead arching a path through the blue. 

He wets his lips, opens his eyes stubbornly against the sunlight. His feet pad swiftly along wood and he imagines everywhere he has ever tread as a series of glaringly red pathways, etched onto thin paper. This one is well-worn and thick. 

He breathes and with it he savours the silence of the early morning, shudders to break it. He picks up the bow delicately, fits the instrument carefully under his chin. Another breath. He places it against the strings and counts to eight. In his head it sounds like this: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. But the small clock residing on the mantelpiece records it as a series of soft noises, almost painfully regular. Break it, break it. 

Three bars in and he no longer has to think about what his hands are doing. There's no pattern to it; it becomes water with sound etched into the layers of it. They are no longer his hands. 

It's a while later when he hears John get out of bed, even over the music. No one quite knows how long he's been standing there for, but the clock has recorded it dutifully all the same. He faces the window and doesn't turn around while somebody else's hands sew streams and violin sheet music together. 

John stands with one shoulder leaning against the wall (for four minutes and forty two seconds, the clock very helpfully provides). Sherlock knows he's standing there and John knows Sherlock knows he is standing there but nobody says anything at all. When the music reaches its natural end their eyes finally meet and what hovers between them, while being somewhat undefinable, is soft. John thinks 'why me' whilst looking into Sherlock's eyes while Sherlock thinks 'why me' whilst looking into John's eyes. Neither man will ever know this. 

John kisses him gently, slowly and when they pull back he briefly wonders how those middle-of-the-ocean eyes can look so violently demonstrative of something bigger than devotion. They move into the kitchen. A hand puts bread in the toaster, someone's fingertips brush someone's hipbone, the fridge is opened for the milk to be taken away, one man pushes himself up fully behind the other, knee to shoulder, lips to neck. This is the only dance anyone ever needs to bother to learn. 

When Sherlock watches John's form grow smaller and smaller until he becomes just another morning commuter, he simply leans against the window pane and smiles. Because this, this is their house, where music which has never been written down is embedded just beneath the wallpaper, where the tea bags reside next to Mrs Betjeman's ashes and where they both lay down something bigger than their hearts for the other to explore. He smiles because although John is walking further from their walls, he knows that he'll always return.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this isn't my usual thing. I should probably add here that 'Drowned in Evening Light' is definitely still being written, but I'm currently on holiday and all my planning notes are on my computer which is, of course, at home. I just needed to write something. Thanks for understanding and when I get back home, that will certainly resume the top spot on my priorities list.


End file.
